Chapter 2.2

 Narrator switch

It happened about fifteen minutes after Kimizuka had left. "My. Are you a friend of my daughter?"

A woman of about sixty came walking toward me, carrying flowers.

I stood up, greeting her with a nod. "It's been a long time, Rose Bennett."

This was the mother of Daisy, Jack the Devil's fifth victim. Last year, while on the trail of the culprit, Kimizuka, Siesta, and I had paid a visit to her house.

"We imposed on you at a really awful time earlier, and I apologize," I told her, bowing more deeply.

On that visit, the strain of losing her daughter had taken its toll on her, and she'd collapsed right in front of us.

"…Have we met before, young lady?" The woman gave a slightly troubled smile.

Come to think of it, I should have expected that reaction. When I visited her, I'd been using Cerberus's seed to make myself look like Alicia. No wonder she hadn't connected that version with me. "…I guess it's already been more than a year since that incident," I said, trying to cover for myself. As I spoke, I watched Rose lay the flowers in front of the gravestone.

"Time has wings, doesn't it? Even those painful days are receding into the past." The woman's smile had suffering etched into it. "At the time, while my grief was still raw, I was run ragged every day responding to the media about the affair."

"Yes, so I've heard. I also heard about that MP." For a moment, Rose's face tensed.

I was talking about a man who'd stepped forward as a replacement candidate for Daisy Bennett, who'd been the local representative in parliament. He'd given tearful speeches about carrying on her legacy and had won by a landslide… Except he'd only used those performances to climb the ladder. Behind the scenes, he was getting rich off illegal contributions. He'd even mocked Daisy and called her "a good stepping stone."

"…Yes, young lady, that's right. You know a lot about it. Where did you learn that? One would think you were a detective," Rose joked, straightening up. "It's all right, though. Perhaps he regrets his actions; he seems to have been behaving himself lately."

"I…see."

"Oh, that's right! Today happens to be my daughter's birthday. I'm glad there's someone besides me who remembers her," Rose said, smiling tenderly. My bland response didn't seem to have registered with her.

"Yes, I know."

Before coming here, I'd done a little research and learned that today was

Daisy Bennett's birthday. Unlike Japan, England didn't have a custom of visiting graves during a predetermined season like Obon, and they often brought flowers to the deceased on their birthdays.

From that information, I'd known there was a good possibility that Rose Bennett would visit her daughter's grave today. Our meeting was no coincidence; I'd come here specifically to see her.

"Rose Bennett, you're the Medusa, aren't you?" I hit her with that theory as a surprise.

"…Heh-heh. What are you saying?" Smiling faintly, Rose denied my

accusation. "I know there are rumors about such incidents in the city, but what makes you think I'm this Medusa character?" It was a perfectly natural question. She was still wearing that smile.

Why was I claiming that Rose Bennett was the monster? And if it was true, what had driven her to become a Medusa who turned people to stone?

"It's as you said earlier."

Exactly. As Rose had just told me, the media and that MP had made her suffer, and they were the Medusa victims Kimizuka and I had seen in the hospital today. I'd remembered the reporter particularly well after seeing him in front of Rose's house a year ago.

In addition to those two, there were several other likely Medusa victims. Upon investigating, we'd learned that they'd all had some sort of quarrel with Daisy Bennett. If there was anyone who'd have a grudge against those people, it was… "Rose. You became the Medusa in order to get revenge on your daughter's

enemies… On the people who tried to dishonor her."

One day, without warning, she'd lost her only daughter. All she had left of her was a mute corpse. With nowhere else to direct her grief, she'd tried to punish those who'd attempted to hurt her little girl, even after her death. Her daughter had become as cold as stone, and so she'd tried to inflict the same suffering on them. That was what had created the Medusa.

"Is that all?" Rose Bennett's smile had vanished during my explanation. She closed in on me, her face grim. "That's nothing more than conjecture. You've merely set up a plausible-sounding motive; you have no concrete evidence."

"…You're right. There's no evidence here. But…," I went on. "If they search your house, they're sure to find the poison."

Before coming to the graveyard, I'd had one of the hospital's doctors tell me about the specific symptoms of the Medusa's victims. My red eyes had helped

tremendously, and the fact was that a certain toxin had been detected in all of them.

According to Kimizuka, it had the same constituents as the poison gas the owner of that European mansion in the forest had used two years ago.

That made it clear that the current Medusa was also using a special toxin to damage her victims' minds. Even if we didn't track it down ourselves, material evidence was sure to turn up someday. And besides—

"Rose. I want to hear the truth straight from you."

Kimizuka had suggested bringing evidence to the graveyard with us, but I'd rejected the idea. I'd chosen to persuade Rose Bennett, no matter what.

"…Well, really, how could I forgive them?" Rose smiled thinly. I was sure it wasn't directed at me; she was laughing at herself. She didn't need me to tell her that what she was doing was wrong. Even so— "Yes, it's me. I'm the monster you speak of. The Medusa."

The mother couldn't let it go after the disrespect they'd shown her daughter, and she'd repaid them with poison-induced comas.

"How did you get that toxin?" I asked her. It wasn't the sort of thing someone living a normal life would ever encounter.

"When was it…? One day, it just turned up in the post," Rose murmured. Her eyes were vacant.

So someone had intentionally set her on this path!

"Tell me," the woman pleaded. "One day, my daughter suddenly dropped dead. She's ashes now; she'll never speak to me again. I want to hear her voice so badly, but I never will. Meanwhile, the people who disgraced her say whatever they please about her. Why? What on earth could be wrong with shutting their mouths?"

She caught my shoulders…but almost immediately, she crumpled weakly to the ground.

Rose Bennett would never forgive those who'd desecrated her daughter's death. Oblivious strangers wailed loudly for their own benefit, while the girl herself would be silent forever. In her efforts to change that, Rose had become a monster.

What should I say to her?

If I found the right words for the torrent of feelings inside me—what Kimizuka kindly considered "passion"—could I save her? I'd managed to accept Yui when she held us at gunpoint. Could my words reach the woman on her

knees and become a staff that would help her stand again?

No. They couldn't.

After all, I'd failed to save Rose before. The intensity I'd shown when I was at her house last year hadn't gotten through to her… But of course it hadn't. I hadn't looked like my true self then. I hadn't even understood the crime I'd committed. It was incredibly arrogant for someone like me to try to save her.

Then what should I do?

Whose words could save this woman? Who could dry the tears of a mother who'd collapsed, weeping, in front of her daughter's grave? …There was only one answer.

"Please lend me strength."

Untying the red ribbon that bound my hair, I turned to my other partner for help.

  A message from Niflheim

"That's why I told you I'd do it to begin with."

Squeezing the red ribbon in my hand, I grumbled to my master's consciousness lying dormant somewhere in this body. Honestly, what had been the point of that fight? I couldn't even sigh at my master's passion—well, her stubbornness.

"Who are you?" The woman who was crouched in front of the gravestone looked up at me.

Only the contents of this body were different; my appearance hadn't changed a bit. Maybe the sharp look in my eyes had clued her in.

Still, who was I, really? What was I?

It struck me as a very philosophical question. "I couldn't tell you. I'm myself, that's all."

I looked down at the woman; I was responding to my master's request. "What you were given was an inferior product. It is a toxin, but its effects are only temporary. The minds of those men may be clouded now, but they'll wake up soon."

A certain member of SPES, to whom Father had given a seed, had created that

toxin inside his own body.

That pseudohuman's code name was "Jellyfish." Scientific name: Medusa.

Jellyfish poison loses its effect after a certain amount of time has passed. The man had been making SPES's lowest-ranking members sell it in order to earn a little cash.

He'd probably capitalized on this woman's weakness after the loss of her daughter. The poison might have appealed to her. I hoped he hadn't billed her for it yet… No, I was in no position to worry about things like that.

"—Come any closer, and I'll shoot!" Rose Bennett took a handgun out of the purse by her feet.

"I see. So they gave you that, too?"

My entrance had only made the situation worse.

Conversations with others are surprisingly difficult. If this goes on, I thought,

my master will scold me. An awkward little smile escaped me. "…!"

The smile may have been a poor move, though; Rose raised the gun, pointing it at me with trembling hands.

To be honest, I thought it might be for the best if she shot me. She had the right to. If she was going to get her revenge, now was the time.

—But.

"That bullet won't hit me."

She fired, but the bullet missed its target by a wide margin. The dry report and the smoke hung in the air.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let my master die." "Stay back…"

Rose's legs had given out in terror, and she scooted away from me on her behind.

Did she think I was going to kill her?

…Oh, that made sense, actually. Those of us in SPES had followed Father's orders, obeyed our survival instincts, and used the special abilities granted by the seeds to kill this planet's humans. If they instinctively feared us, that was only natural.

"That isn't why I'm here now."

There's no way my master would have called me to do a thing like that.

The reason she'd called me here was for something she couldn't do. A thing only I was capable of.

My master hadn't completely mastered the use of this body's seed yet. The red eyes were only a trigger; the seed's real power lay in this throat. In our voice.

"The true shape of my ability is 'word-soul'—it imbues the words I speak with power."

The seeds Father created granted special powers to human organs. They were what the members of SPES had used to keep up their attacks on mankind, on his instructions.

However, hypothetically…

If there was another way to use this power, a way besides hurting people… If my word-soul ability had the power to save someone…

"Stop, stay away from me…! Daisy!" I was right in front of Rose Bennett now. As she looked up at me, she called her daughter's name. I knelt gently, putting myself at her eye level.

Oh, I see.

This is human terror.

Had her daughter feared me this way, a year ago?

In London, I'd been in a trancelike state—until I came to with a corpse in front of me. In order to save this body and my master's life, I'd extracted the heart from that corpse. And then I'd done the same again, over and over. Had those five people been this terrified of me just before they died as well?

"I'm sorry for frightening you," I told Rose Bennett. She was trembling. The apology was also directed at those five people, last year.

"...?"

Rose probably didn't understand, though. Even now, her eyes were darting around anxiously… These things really never go well.

I wasn't a logical hero who'd consistently turned out the best possible solutions based on knowledge and experience, nor was I an ace detective who tried to make her lofty ideals a reality with her intense emotions.

In the end, I was only an imitation. A shapeless mass of consciousness that had come to dwell in a girl named Nagisa Natsunagi. My existence was so fragile that, if I hadn't been bound by the desire to be needed, a gust of wind might have blown me away.

"But now, I have a bond."

I squeezed the red ribbon again. Right now, I was standing here because my master needed me.

That's right. I couldn't imitate that white-haired detective, and I couldn't be like my master, the one this ribbon suited. As I said earlier, I was only myself.

And so, right now, I would do what only I could do.

I was sure that was the one and only right given to me, as well as a duty I had to perform.

"Rose Bennett. This is a present not from me, but from her."

My ability was word-soul—the ability to imbue words with powers. Which meant I could also exchange words with someone I'd exchanged blood with. One year ago, when I'd switched hearts, I'd also traded blood with Daisy Bennett, and so I remembered her final words.

"I'm sure she would have told you this."

Under the sunset sky, before a gravestone on a grassy field, I knelt down and delivered Daisy Bennett's last words to her mother.

"I love you, Mum." My name is Hel.

Code name: Hell.

My name belongs to the queen who rules the land of the dead—the link between the living and the departed.

  The name of that emotion is…

My vision suddenly expanded. I saw the orange glow of the sunset. Insects were singing in the distance, and I realized that my consciousness was back in my body.

"…Hel."

My partner had finished her job without trouble and retreated to some shadowy corner of our body.

"Whoops!"

Just then, Rose Bennett stumbled, falling weakly against my shoulder. Her eyes were closed. "Daisy…," she murmured. The name of her only daughter.

Then, as if she'd fainted, she fell asleep in my arms. "I'm sorry."

I wish I could have saved you properly that time.

As I apologized, I was remembering that I'd held her like this a year ago, too.

Just for a few moments, I leaned Rose against the gravestone and called a taxi on my cell. If I let her rest at home, I was sure she'd wake up soon.

Speaking of waking up, Hel had told me the people left in vegetative states by

the toxin would recover naturally with time. In other words, this incident was resolved.

Just one more time, I gave a brief, silent prayer at the grave. "I can't say I've done enough to atone…" The emotion in my voice was less apologetic and more resolved toward the future.

There was no way this would absolve me of the crimes I'd committed a year ago. Nothing ever would. All I could do was keep saving people, without letting the position of "detective" limit me.

Right now, the jobs that took priority were defeating Seed and bringing Siesta back to life. That last one would take a miracle that would go above and beyond even the flawless Ace Detective's intentions. To make it a reality—

"I'm counting on you, Kimizuka."

I was sure my strength alone wouldn't be enough. I looked up at the sky, thinking of the partner who always had my back. At this very moment, he was busy collecting clues about those jobs.

Kimihiko Kimizuka—my assistant and sidekick.

I'd met him in a classroom after school not too long ago, but for some reason, it hadn't felt like the first time we'd spoken. Later on, I'd learned that the heart inside me had spent three whole years traveling with him.

I'd been telling myself that that was why it beat faster whenever I saw him, that it had nothing to do with my own feelings. But it turned out I'd personally met Kimizuka a year ago, here in London. I'd been trapped in darkness then, and his words had saved me. Meaning the real reason my heart sped up when he was near me was…

"…Nah."

The answer was right there, but I decided not to reach for it. Doing that at this point felt like it would be breaking the rules.

Everything would have to wait… "Until we bring Siesta back."

On that note, I set off toward the place where I knew Kimizuka would be.

—And just then, I heard a faint explosion in the distance.